Survivor's Guilt
by thedistalphalanges
Summary: John Hamish Watson suffers from what is commonly known as survivor's guilt. It's been a few months since Sherlock jumped, and of all things, John just needs to find a way to deal with all of his left over emotions and how on earth he could just move on after Sherlock's death.


**" **Um. Hm. You... you told me once that you weren't a hero. Um. There were times that I didn't even think you were human. But let me tell you this, you were the best man and the most human... human being that I have ever known, and no one will ever convince me that you told me a lie. And so... there. I was so alone and I owe you so much. Please, there's just one more thing. One more thing. One more miracle, Sherlock, for me. Don't be... dead. Would you do that, just for me? Just stop it, stop this... **"**

It had been two months since he jumped and Dr. John Watson was still feeling rather worse for the wear. His therapist wasn't helping him; her suggestion to renew his blog resulted in him jumping up and running out, slamming the door. After he was gone, John had deleted his blog, hoping to never see or relive the memories that he used to relish. The public and press had let down a tad, but every day there were at least three microphones shoved in his face attached to blurry and bulky reporters shouting questions.

_John, where were you when Sherlock hired Richard Brook? _

_What do you have to say about the whole affair?_

_Did Sherlock fool you, too?_

_Were you part of this scheme as well?_

_Do you know anything about why Sherlock chose to commit suicide?_

All John could do was to weakly shove them aside and try to keep walking, but they swarmed around him like bees, and John could feel the numerous stings. Several times Mycroft would have to send sleek silver cars after John.

"Come on, John, be a man. Sherlock's gone, and there's nothing you can do about it!" Mycroft had exploded two days ago. His outburst surprised both the men, and John began to cry. He'd experienced loss in the army in Afghanistan, but Sherlock was his only friend in London. He remembered Molly, and decided to visit her. Near Christmastime she had come to their party; he had almost forgotten the affect he had on Molly. Molly was in love, and she would do anything to please him. But he was so rude to her. Perhaps it would have been better to leave him with his skull, but Mrs. Hudson said it wasn't healthy, to talk to a skull. John had found it helpful after he was gone.

He remembered this armchair, his armchair. The first time he had ever come to 221B, he had sat in this very chair, propping the pillow with the Union Jack printed on under his back. Watson subconsciously prodded at the same pillow that was currently under his back again. A Study in Pink, he had called it on his blog. That was the first thing that happened in his new life.

A bit after his row with the pin and chip machine he had returned home, Sherlock with a unconscious Indian envoy sprawled in the chair. That was The Blind Banker.

And it was the same chair that those rascals from the American Secret Service, or whatever the bloody organization they worked for, had seated Mrs. Hudson after they briefly kidnapped her. Sherlock and his surprisingly hard head, which proved that he wasn't just thick-headed in the metaphorically love and people department either, were the only reason that Mrs. Hudson was alive. Well, technically, that wasn't true, because if Sherlock hadn't fooled the man, John would've tackled him. And most likely there would've been the same result: the man being thrown out the window numerous times. "It's all a bit of a blur, Detective Inspector. I lost count." A Scandal in Belgravia.

In their last case, Watson bitterly remembered, Sherlock had sat frequently in this armchair, John primarily used the couch in the room. It was Sherlock's multi-purpose brooding chair. It was a broken casket of memories.

John got up from his "new" armchair and headed towards the doorway. "Mrs. Hudson?" he called, "I'm going out." She nodded weakly after him, wringing her hands. He trotted down the stairs quickly and exited the complex.

Upon standing on the street of Baker Street, he turned right and kept walking. However, after a few steps, his right leg buckled and he almost fell. The limp was back. The owner of Speedy's quickly ran out to help him, see if anything was wrong. Already the press had congregated, and John profusely thanked the owner and decided to take a cab to Barts instead of walking, especially if the press followed him, and the limp was still bothering him. He knew that if he returned to the flat then he wouldn't come back out again.

A reporter shoved their microphone into John's face and started asking questions. There was a large video camera behind them and recording. Watson looked into the eyes of the reporter and had a shock. Could they be his eyes? No. The silhouette was too short for his stature and it just didn't seem like Sherlock. The eyes of an anonymous and annoying reporter bored into Watson's face, hoping that he would divulge information and a story that would shoot them up in the newsroom.

"No comment," he said finally, not hearing the question. Watson didn't want to go through the process of having Mycroft telling him that he wasn't allowed to yell at the reporters because they would say he had a sort of mental disease and needed to be treated. He stepped out of the reporter's path and hailed a cab. The press were still hammering on the windows and shouting questions as the vehicle pulled away.

"Where to?" the cabbie asked. "Er, Barts Hospital, please," Watson muttered uncertainly. "Yessir," the cabbie said and pulled back into traffic. Watson was instantly sucked into a flashback of their first ever case, A Study in Pink. They had met at Barts by Stamford, and then the next day had gotten into a cab and gone onto their case.

"Okay, you've got questions," said Sherlock.

"Yeah, where are we going?" John replied.

"Crime scene. Next?"

"Who are you? What do you do?"

"What do you think?"

"I'd say private detective..."

"But?" Sherlock prodded.

"... but the police don't go to private detectives." John finished.

"I'm a _consulting_ detective. Only one in the world. I invented the job." Sherlock explained.

"What does that mean?"

"It means when the police are out of their depth, which is always, they consult me."

"The police don't consult amateurs."

"When I met you for the first time yesterday, I said, "Afghanistan or Iraq?" You looked surprised."

"Yes, how _did_ you know?"

"I didn't know, I saw. Your haircut, the way you hold yourself says military. But your conversation as you entered the room..."

"... said trained at Bart's, so Army doctor – obvious. Your face is tanned but no tan above the wrists. You've been abroad, but not sunbathing. Your limp's really bad when you walk but you don't ask for a chair when you stand, like you've forgotten about it, so it's at least partly psychosomatic. That says the original circumstances of the injury were traumatic. Wounded in action, then. Wounded in action, suntan – Afghanistan or Iraq." Sherlock briefly spindled off.

"You said I had a therapist." John reminded.

"You've got a psychosomatic limp – of _course_ you've got a therapist. Then there's your brother."

"Hmm?"

"Your phone. It's expensive, e-mail enabled, MP3 player, but you're looking for a flatshare – you wouldn't waste money on this. It's a gift, then. Scratches. Not one, many over time. It's been in the same pocket as keys and coins. The man sitting next to me wouldn't treat his one luxury item like this, so it's had a previous owner. Next bit's easy. You know it already."

"The engraving." John said.

"Harry Watson: clearly a family member who's given you his old phone. Not your father, this is a young man's gadget. _Could_ be a cousin, but you're a war hero who can't find a place to live. Unlikely you've got an extended family, certainly not one you're close to, so brother it is. Now, Clara. Who's Clara? Three kisses says it's a romantic attachment. The expense of the phone says wife, not girlfriend. She must have given it to him recently – this model's only six months old. Marriage in trouble then – six months on he's just given it away. If she'd left _him_, he would have kept it. People do – sentiment. But no, he wanted rid of it. He left _her_. He gave the phone to _you_: that says he wants you to stay in touch. You're looking for cheap accommodation, but you're not going to your brother for help: that says you've got problems with him. Maybe you liked his wife; maybe you _don't_ like his drinking."

"How can you _possibly_ know about the drinking?" John asked surprised.

"Shot in the dark. Good one, though. Power connection: tiny little scuff marks around the edge of it. Every night he goes to plug it in to charge but his hands are shaking. You never see those marks on a sober man's phone; never see a drunk's without them."

"There you go, you see – you were right."

"_I_ was right? Right about what?" John said incredulously.

"The police don't consult amateurs."

"That ... was amazing."

"Do you think so?"

"Of _course_ it was. It was extraordinary; it was quite extraordinary."

"That's not what people normally say."

"What do people normally say?"

"'Piss off'!" Sherlock said laughing.

"Sir? We've arrived," hesitantly said the cabbie. "Yes," John said gruffly and pulled his wallet out. "Oh, no, sir, you seem so upset, it's all I can do is to give you a free ride," said the cabbie, surprising Watson. "Oh, alright then," he said and exited the cab. The cabbie gave a friendly wave and drove off. Watson would never see him again.

John started walking towards the entrance to Barts, and decided to ask Molly to look at his leg. Maybe it was more than a mental problem now. He passed the sidewalk where he landed, where his head hit the pavement, where he broke his bones, when he died, when he had fallen directly in Watson's vision. Now Watson would never know what happened up on the rooftop, what Moriarty told Sherlock. All that was up there was Moriarty's dead body, Moriarty's blood, Moriarty's gun, and Moriarty's smile. That was all that Watson was allowed to see, but not after he kicked the body with his boot. Lestrade tried to charge him with tampering with evidence at a murder scene, but once he saw the look of contempt on Watson's face, he backed off.

And then it all hit him.

Sherlock would never ever come back to John. He may have said that he wasn't gay, but Sherlock was special to him; Sherlock was a link to a previous, busy and exciting life, and Watson knew that now he had no life again, such it was before he met Stamford in the park and before he introduced Watson to Sherlock. Honestly, if not for Stamford, he might be sharing a flat with someone unimportant or dull and boring. Now he was turning into Sherlock, calling the everyday person dull and boring. Without Sherlock, he was dull and boring. He needed Sherlock.

Watson hit the floor, hitting his head as he had on the day it happened, just as he had when the bicyclist had run into him after Sherlock had jumped. A man ran up to him, asking him if he was alright; Watson waved him off, "I'm fine, I'll be fine."

John shakily got back to his feet and looked around. Everything was just as it was on the day that Sherlock jumped. Sherlock was standing on top of Barts and he had thrown his phone away to the side. The only thing different was that John was right underneath him and Sherlock was going to jump and he was going to land on John.

John could see Sherlock's eyes nervously flitting side to side as he licked his lips. "No," muttered Watson. "No." Sherlock jumped, and kicked his legs wildly. John widened his eyes and made to move out of the way, but just froze. Sherlock came closer and closer and it hit.

A pigeon swooped down next to Watson and plucked a chunk of meat from the nearby vendor before returning back to the sky. John rubbed his temples and look back at the roof. Sherlock wasn't there, neither was a phone or a falling body. It was a hallucination.

"Oh, boy," whispered John before whirling around to catch a cab back to 221B. There was no way he could go visit Molly now, especially after what he had thought he had seen. Just no possible way. Most likely he would come to her and start blubbering and crying, and he was supposed to be pretending that he was fine and he was over it, but it was obvious that John was absolutely not alright.

A cab stopped for John and he quickly alighted. "Baker Street, please," he told the cabbie and relapsed back into silence. The man turned the radio on and some stupid pop song started playing. John snorted, knowing what Sherlock's response would have been: "I hear enough stupidity from the rest of the world; I'd prefer to keep it out of cabs." John missed Sherlock greatly.

"We're here, sir," said the cabbie, interrupting John's train of thought. This cabbie wasn't as benevolent as the first had been, and John quickly dug out the pounds out of his wallet. He handed them to the man, who made a show of counting the money exactly, making John wait unnecessarily.

"Are you the John Watson who was the psychopath Sherlock Holmes' best friend?" asked the cabbie in a snotty, disdainful voice. John glared at him.

"For the record, he wasn't a psychopath, he was a highly-functioning sociopath," John said angrily, stealing Sherlock's line. The cabbie shrugged, as if it was all the same to him, and drove off, not giving John his change. "Oi!" Watson yelled after the cab, but it had already driven into traffic and was about to turn the street corner.

"Bloody idiot," he grumbled. Watson walked up to his door and turned the key in the lock. The door swung open and John withdrew the key. With difficulty he climbed the stairs, owing to the absence of his crutch. After the first case he had thrown it into the back of the closet in Sherlock's room. He retrieved it without looking at the rest of the room, and went back to the armchair, gripping the handle of the crutch tightly as he sat down.

It truly was his fault, in reality.

That day, he shouldn't have fallen for the "Mrs. Hudson's been shot" ploy. It was highly improbable that that would have happened, especially with the Homeless Network on the case. When Sherlock and John had been escorted and arrested by the police, Sherlock had made sure not to make the same mistake of leaving her unguarded, especially after the Americans had come after her. The Homeless Network would've been shot, not Mrs. Hudson.

Or maybe he should have gotten a faster cab and made it there sooner, so he could stop Moriarty and whatever he said and whatever he did. Moriarty wouldn't have been able to force Sherlock to jump, because really, Sherlock couldn't have been a fraud or a fake. It just wasn't possible.

Or maybe he should never have let Sherlock keep running around London and found him a steady job with some help from Lestrade, especially after he had almost died in their first case. Instead of getting tied up with Moriarty, Sherlock could be working as a paid detective for Lestrade, and then Anderson and Donovan might not hate Sherlock as much as they used to. To be fair, they still hated Sherlock because they believed the lies that the newspapers spread.

Or he could have told Sherlock about the letter that he got containing the bread crumbs sooner. He could have pieced everything together and the girl might not have started the suspicion in Donovan that eventually crashed their world around their ears. If he had told Sherlock that he had gotten the letter as soon as he got it, then they could have traced the seal and the crumbs much faster and sooner than they had done. He could've told Sherlock about the assassins that Mycroft had told him about after he returned from talking in the Gentleman's Club.

Or maybe he should have been on the rooftop with Sherlock and tackled Moriarty or done some amazing physical feat that would have saved Sherlock, Mrs. Hudson, Molly and Lestrade. He should have been able to save them all while Sherlock did his mind and thinking way, and he physically trapped Moriarty. He could have kept Sherlock from jumping or leaping or whatever he did because he was just too confused and couldn't do anything. If John had been on top of the roof with Sherlock, he might be discussing some perplexing case with Sherlock right now instead of grieving over his death.

John opened his eyes and saw the small glass of brandy. Mrs. Hudson must have placed it there while his eyes were closed. That sometimes happened; Mrs. Hudson would notice John just holding his head in his hands and thinking. She knew that he was remembering Sherlock and thinking about how it shouldn't have happened and how he was supposed to be responsible for Sherlock because he was his friend. His only friend. "I don't have friends. I've just got one."

"Sherlock," muttered John, "You once said 'Oh, I may be on the side of the angels, but don't think for one second that I am one of them.'" John tried to finish, but he couldn't find enough energy to keep going. He took a long drink of water until his throat was wetted. "Now, you've lied. You're an angel."


End file.
